


Probity

by anr



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-31
Updated: 2005-03-31
Packaged: 2017-11-18 14:11:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/561913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"A man's private thoughts can never be a lie; what he thinks, is to him the truth, always." (Mark Twain)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Probity

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: lyssie
> 
> Request: Sheppard/Weir, female character heroically saves the day, alcohol and replicators.

One hour, forty-seven minutes and some odd seconds after she helps save the Pegasus galaxy (but she's not a hero, not even close, no matter what they say) from the Replicator who looked like Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter (but wasn't), Elizabeth takes a puddle jumper and heads to the mainland.

She just hopes it will be enough.

  


* * *

  


In the marketplace, children and adults scatter alike as she overturns barrels and sweeps crockery from bench tops and the sounds the plates make when they hit the floor-- _crackcrackcrack_ \--are like gunfire. She flinches.

"Doctor Weir?"

Fruits and vegetables. Water. Some withered-looking straw that may or may not be pasta. (She can't remember the last time she ate Italian.)

"Wha--what are you doing?" asks Halling.

"Spring cleaning." There are leather pouches hanging on a wall and she tears them down, one by one, upending their contents. Wheat, grain and rice. Disgusted, she kicks at a basket of tubers.

"Doctor Weir, please, you must sto--" Without even looking she raises the sidearm John insisted she start carrying. He swallows audibly. "Please."

She laughs ( _and laughs_ ). Once. "Yeah." In the corner of the tent, half-covered by skins, she can just see a crate full of bottles. _Finally_. "That's what I said."

  


* * *

  


She walks until the village has faded into the trees and all she can see from here to the horizon is wheat. Sun and solitude and fields of gold. If she weren't so determined to drink herself insensate, she might actually think it nice here.

> _"Yes," she says, dragging her hand along the desk's surface. Elizabeth cautions herself against protesting when she sits in her chair and strokes her laptop (this isn't real). "Yes, this will do nicely."_

She shudders and chases the memory with something that tastes like Vodka and Guinness and Schnapps (possibly Butterscotch, but she can't quite tell thanks to the Guinness) and smells like it's been strained through the mat Simon's dog sleeps on.

> _"Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way--" she says and then stops, suddenly, and laughs. "Wow! I think I just became a cliche."_
> 
> _Elizabeth doesn't laugh, just watches this woman--_ thing _\--carefully. She knows what to expect, knows the Replicator reports inside and out (Hayes considered them a priority, right after the Goa'uld), knows that any moment now her mind is going to become free game._
> 
> _The laughter fades as she leans forward. "Now," she says, serious suddenly. "Back to business." A calculated pause. "Will you tell me everything?"_
> 
> _"Yes."_
> 
> _She smiles and somehow that's worse than the laughter. "Great! Hard way it is."_

Movement in her peripheral vision (obviously she's not drunk enough yet, if she can still see that).

> _A flash of blue and grey and suddenly her office is a cube is the command centre and then--_
> 
> _"How did you power the shield without a ZPM?"_
>
>> > "If we were to disable the grounding stations--" McKay starts.
>>> 
>>> "--which we think we can--"
>>> 
>>> "--every time lightning struck the city, Atlantis would experience a momentary massive power surge."
>>> 
>>> Zelenka is nodding. "Now, that energy, if it's channelled correctly--"
>>> 
>>> "--yes, of course if channelled correctly--could conceivably be used to charge up the shield generator."
>>> 
>>> They've either cracked from the pressure (less than nine-hundred millibars according to the latest analysis) or they really are the smartest people in the galaxy. She hopes it's the latter.
> 
> _\--and then her mind is spinning and twisting and back-flipping as she is led through memories and theories and the rain, the lightning, the storm and then--_
>
>> > "Come on." His hand wraps around hers, tugging her forward and, as they take the stairs two at a time, she can see McKay moving from console to console as the storm--
> 
> _"Wait."_

She freezes, careful not to look at him as he stops beside her.

"Are you--"

"Don't!" The word comes out too quick, too harsh, and she wonders if she looks as wild as she suddenly feels. "Don't ask me if I'm ok." _Don't make me tell the truth._

> > > "You ok?" he asks, looking through her.
>>> 
>>> She can't breathe, can't think. "No."
> 
> _"Fascinating," she says and Elizabeth gets the feeling that, if she could, the Replicator would run her fingers over this moment like she did with her laptop. The idea sends a chill down her spine._

"Actually," he drops down beside her. "I was going to ask if you were planning on sharing." She follows his gaze to the bottle in her hand and, after too long a pause, reluctantly hands it over. "Thanks."

Inanely, she says, "it's Halling's," and he nods.

> _"How many humans are there on Atlantis?"_
> 
> _"Fifty civilians, sixty-four military personnel, one Genii, fifteen Reisens and eighty-nine Athosians."_
> 
> _Not-Lieutenant Colonel Carter smiles. "You forgot me."_
> 
> _"You said 'human'."_
> 
> _"Touche."_

"So I heard." His tone is easy-going but she winces anyway.

"Did I... is he...?" She's not usually this inarticulate and thinks that must be a good sign (must be the alcohol). Retrieving her bottle (and ignoring the way their fingers brush), she drinks. Heavily.

"Nothing a good apology won't fix," he says. "But I wouldn't expect an invitation to the next harvest festival anytime soon."

> > > "Teyla says they're starting the harvest tomorrow. Four days of sun, wheat, manual labour and a case of Halling's special brew when we're done." He pauses and looks at her carefully. "Interested?"
>>> 
>>> She is, very much so, but: "Somehow I don't think Colonel Everett would approve of me leaving all this--" She gestures at the mess of reports and printouts surrounding her laptop: as city administrator, it is her responsibility to keep the paperwork up to date. "--unfinished while I spend a long weekend on the mainland."
>>> 
>>> John shrugs. "So we'll tell him you left your purse behind last month and need to go find it--" He grins. "Or--better yet--that you're past due for another flying lesson."
>>> 
>>> She snorts. "Considering his reaction to the last time--" _A waste of time and resources, Major_ , she remembers the Colonel clearly telling John. _We have a complement of pilots who are in a far greater need of flight time than a_ civilian. "--somehow I doubt that will pacify him."
> 
> _Her office wavers between past and present, then and now. "How sweet," she says mockingly, walking up to the John-who-is-there-and-not-there and resting her hands on the back of his chair. "Now, tell me more about these puddle jumpers..."_

Her fingers tighten around the bottle that is obviously not helping, is not enough. She feels obligated to keep the conversation going. "How's Rodney?"

"Recovering," says John, stealing the alcohol from her again. "Doc says he'll be fine--" a brief pause while he smirks, "--providing Zelenka lets him live it down. When Halling called to say you were in town, the words 'you and blondes' were being thrown around pretty aggressively."

It was Radek who first noticed something wrong about their visitor, Elizabeth thinks (remembers); the scientist disappearing inexplicably for four nights and five days before resurfacing, at the last possible moment, with the weapon that had--

(The rest of them had been too anxious for news from Earth, from their families, to see what was in front of them. She blames herself entirely.)

"... Elizabeth?"

She's moving before she's fully aware of it. Twisting to the left and throwing a leg over his as she straddles him. His hands fly to her waist and grip just a little too hard as she places her own palms against his cheeks, framing his features. He looks startled and unsure; concerned.

"I told her everything," she says slowly, watching his eyes.

He nods. "I know."

> _"Come on," Not-Carter says, searching harderdeeperfaster. "Not even Washington was this honest..."_
>
>> > "--fifteen Reisens and eighty-nine Athosians."
> 
> _\--flash--_

"She didn't believe me at first. Thought I was _lying_."

"You don't lie." He says that with such certainty, such faith. She almost smiles.

> > > "--my job has usually been to get people to _recognise_ the truth."
> 
> _\--flash--_

"It became a game, in the end. Pulling my mind apart, strand by strand, in an attempt to find something dishonest. She said it was _fascinating_."

"But she couldn't find anything." Again with that surety.

> > > "No," she says and the storm breaks and--
> 
> _\--so does she and--_
>
>> > \--there's two-hundred and nineteen people on Atlantis, zero drones, four naquidah generators, and seven other races call them "friend" and four others "enemy" and it's raining and--
> 
> _"Again."_

"No." She can see her hands trembling even as they rest on his cheeks and wonders, a little desperately, where the alcohol ended up as she confesses, "but I begged her to."

> > > \--the storm the storm the storm as she says, "no," over and over and over again...
> 
> _"Please," she says. "Please." Make it stop make it stop makeitstoppleasegodanythingtomakeitstop..._
> 
> _\--there's a flash--_

He grabs her hands and pulls them down; wraps his fingers around hers. Everything freezes. She wonders if he understands.

"Elizabeth." Nobody has ever said her name the way he does, right now, all quiet and serious with their faces close and his palms warm against the backs of her hands. She feels like she should be crying. "Lie to me."

Her eyes close. Her breath catches. A hundred or more prevarications _finally_ springing to mind: _no_ and _yes_ and _i can't, i won't, i shouldn't, i regret_...

"John." A heartbeat of silence, in which she dismisses them all. "I don't love you." In her head, a postscript: _and i never, ever will._

He sighs (holds her hands a little bit tighter) and says, "good," in a voice so low the word's felt, more than heard, as he closes the distance between them and kisses her.

Somehow, it's enough.

  


* * *

  


> _\--there's a flash of blue of grey of white of pain of cordite--_
>
>> > She--
> 
> _\--screams._
> 
> _"Elizabeth!" Hands on her shoulders, on her hips, on her hair. She sucks in a deep breath, wants to scream again (and again and again and again) but doesn't because this is new, this is different, this is_ stopping _._
> 
> _"John?" she asks. He is still pulling at her clothes, at her skin, the blue and grey blocks turning to ash as he brushes her free of her restraints. She helps him, helps herself, and sees Doctor Zelenka doing the same with Rodney across the room. When he sees her looking over, he lifts a hand as if to salute. In his other hand, a device she's never seen before._
> 
> _"Thank you, Doctor Weir," Radek says, and she frowns in confusion. "Had you and McKay not kept It busy, I never would have had the chance to construct this weapon." Beside him, Rodney doubles over and throws up._
> 
> _"My hero," says John quietly, under his breath, and she's about to concur right up until she realises he's looking at_ her _._
> 
> _Suddenly, she knows exactly how Rodney feels._

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/195849.html>


End file.
